Interview with Wild Love

Last week American band Wild Love released their latest song Tuesday Night and I fell in love instantly. I reached out to the band asking if they would be interested in doing an interview with us and luckily they said yes! Before we start though I just wanted to mention how nice the guys were while I was talking to them over email and instagram, they all seem like great guys and I am excited for the future of Wild Love. You should all go and listen to Tuesday Night as well as Seasonal and their past songs, I have really been enjoying listening to them over the last week or so, and as their bio says, they are definitely becoming my new favourite band. I would recommend the band to fans of Sea Girls, Inhaler and Hippo Campus.

Hi guys! How are you?

[Brandon] Good! Just working on some demos, talking about our plans to vote early and how Mike swore he wouldn’t become a Trader Joe’s boy, but is cooking food from Trader Joe’s as we speak haha.

How would you describe your sound to the readers?

[Brandon] Alt-Pop is probably most fitting. But I like to think we are the melodies of one direction mixed with the attitude and honesty of Blur, in a traditional rock 4 piece.

Who would you consider to be your biggest musical influences? (Individually or as a band)

[Brandon] We have so many influences as individuals and literally anything you hear helps form a musical choice that you make whether intentional or not. But to answer your question the likes of Abba, One Direction, The Vaccines, Bruce Springsteen, Blur, Hippo Campus and so many others have pushed and shaped our sound.

How did you start the band?

[Brandon] The band started at a high school bus stop in Northern Virginia. Myself, Nolan, and Si met on my first day of school in America. We found our love for music and had all played in some bad bands in the past, so we decided to start our own. Then 2 weeks later we played our first gig. It was a very short courting period.

You just released Tuesday Night your second single this year, and I have to say how much I love it, from the music to the lyrics to the production. What was the main inspiration behind this song?

[Brandon] The song is inspired by the current dating climate and by personal experiences of myself and our producer Ryan..kind of our idealization of love and how it is so different to what we grew up thinking. With most of our relationships taking place through a phone screen and relationships being so hookup based, the song puts that kind of relationship into perspective and asks if it is working for both people involved.

The choruses on the song sound huge, was this an intentional choice for you? It sounds like it would be great live.

[Mike] Well when Brandon brought that chorus, between the lyrics he wrote, the chords he chose and the ethereal nature of the falsetto vocals, it really lended itself to be big. So when it was time to bring it to life in the studio or on stage, it just felt like a part that deserved to be held up by something huge. So in a way it was more natural than intentional, but once we found that huge sound we really tried to lean into it.

Lyrically you seem to be more hesitant and introspective than on Seasonal, what prompted you to be more vulnerable on this song?

[Brandon] I think “Seasonal” was heavily metaphor based, recalling how my past relationships were always changing with the seasons and how they always had one foot out the door. With “Tuesday Night” it has an obvious overarching narrative that is relatable to most, but it was very specific to past relationships. I just felt recalling those past emotions was needed for the song, listener, and ultimately myself. That first line is something I feel, not just on Tuesdays haha.

Has the pandemic changed how you work together as a band? Have there been any challenges to how you approach making music?

[Mike] Obviously we can’t go work out songs on the road, so we’ve pivoted and leaned into learning more about using different tools to create, like recording and demoing at home, sending each other ideas, in many ways flipping our old approach on its head. We were already talking pre-pandemic about changing our writing process around a bit, so we worked some of our plans into this new model, and while there were some growing pains in the beginning, the new approach has really blossomed into helping us create some of our favorite work to date, it’s been awesome.

On your website you guys have an amazing merch pack that fans can buy where you donate 100% of the proceedings to different causes. I think this is such a cool idea, how did it come about?

[Mike] I mean, after George Floyd was murdered, it obviously was wrong to post anything about the band, take up real estate that was meant for more relevant and important voices at that time. And while half the band are immigrants and have experienced racism in one way or another at some point, we know in the grand scheme of things that we all enjoy the privilege white males do in this country, so we knew our role was to first listen, rather than speak. We’ve always been a group of individuals that cares about these things, but I think that understanding how we could help was something we had not fully pieced together until we took the time to listen to all the voices that were being amplified in the months following George Floyd’s murder.

And we’re fully aware that few t-shirts are not going to solve racism or police brutality, protect all trans people from the violence they experience, or keep men like Bill Lee (Gov. of Tennessee) from using religion as an excuse in their crusade to control women’s bodies, but knowing that we brought to light not only these organizations that fight tirelessly for these human rights issues, but actionable ways to help, I don’t know, we felt that was the most appropriate use of whatever merch and platform we have. It has been a tough year all around, but the response to the merch sale was so overwhelming and really helped us flip from glass half empty to glass half full on a lot of these issues, it was a really inspiring response to see from our fans.

But yeah, please go to our website to at least read about Teens 4 Equality (local human rights / BLM group in Nashville), The Okra Project (helping feed members of the Black-Trans community) and ACLU of Tennessee (fighting for reproductive rights) and all the good they’re doing, and buy a pack (or donate directly to theses organizations) if you can, we still have some shirts left!

(I will link the website for you all at the end of this post.)

Lastly, what can we expect from you next?

[Mike] More music, more music, and more music haha. That’s all we can say right now. Like we said, we’re writing and recording as we currently release, so there shouldn’t be any shortage of music from us for a while.

[Brandon]

Yeah likewise on all of that. Hopefully people get their masks on so we can play some gigs again soon.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer these questions, it’s really appreciated, and I wish you all the best for all of your upcoming plans.

Thank you for taking the time as well! So nice to meet you!

Please go and listen to Tuesday Night and follow Wild Love online, as always all will be linked below. I am genuinely really excited to see what comes next from them. Thanks once again to Wild Love for taking the time to answer these questions for us.

Thank for reading, and until next time...

Listen to Wild love on Spotify here.

Go to Wild Love's website here.

Wild Love's merch for charity here.

Follow Wild Love on Instagram here.

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